Road Races
Trimpell 20
14th March 2010
The Trimpell 20 starts and finishes in Lancaster at the Salt Ayre sports Centre close to the river Lune.
The route is almost entirely on cycle paths, initially heading towards Morcombe before turning back to Lancaster, crossing the river and heading out the Lune valley.
Although the course is flat and somewhat boring, It is an ideal race for anyone building up to marathon distance, particularly London which is at the end of April.
This was the case for the four Tynedale runners who completed the event on the 14th March. Rachel Chinnery and Ian Brown are currently training for London 2010 while Louise Griffin and Balazs Somogyi are building up for Cork and Edinburgh respectively.
Balazs had the best run of the day keeping his pace going the full distance to finish in 2 hours 14 minutes 45 seconds. Ian was close behind in 2 hours 16 minutes 52 seconds and while he and Balazs had run most of the way together, Ian faded over the last 5 miles. Rachel on the other hand finished strongly in 2 hours 26 minutes 19 seconds completing the distance without too much difficulty. Louise also had a good run and was very satisfied with her time of 2 hours 40 minutes 12 seconds.
Although no prizes were given, it is worth noting that Rachel was second in her V45 age category and Ian was first in his age category Vet 50 (although Ian finished just behind a V60 runner!)
This is a good event, well oraganised and follows a very pleasant route but really only worth the journey to Lancaster if building up for a road marathon or other long distance event.
Buttermere Round
14th February 2010
The Buttermere Round is a 34 Km road race organised by Keswick AC in February each year which,
(according to the Keswick AC website) is 'restricted to experienced Athletic Club members, minimum age 20yrs'.
The biggest challenge however is probably not the distance or the time of year, but the very challenging hills encountered around the course!
After a very pleasant run alongside Derwent water and on through Rothswaite, the Honister Pass is the first real climb which has to be negotiated. This is steep but is over relatively quickly although further climbs up to the slate mine make it hard on the legs. The real challenge however comes after the water station at 20Km. This signals the start of the long slog up over Newlands pass. From the top of Newlands, there is a mostly downhill run back to Keswick through Stair and Portenscales. The steep downhills can be a real shock to the system and care needs to be taken to avoid cramp or injury.
Four Tynedale Harriers completed the ditance this year, Rachel Chinnery, Clive Short, Paul Tait and Ian Brown. Only Ian had previous experience of the route (having completed the race on 4 previous occasions) so the others were at a slight disadvantage compared to Ian as they did not know what to expect!
With Ian and Rachel both in full Marathon training for London it was no real surprise the they recorded the best times for the Tynedale team. Rachel was 2nd Lady and 37th overall in a time of 2 hours 53 minutes, picking up first prize Vet lady.
Ian finished 29th overall in 2 hours 47 minutes, beaten into second Vet 50 place by his former Dumfries clubmate, Les Hill.
Clive finished three places behind Rachel in 2 hours 55 minutes having lost some ground to Rachel in the later stages of the race. Paul had also found the run in from Newlands difficult due to his lack of training at the longer distances but still managed to finish in 50th position in 3 hours 06 minutes.
Once recovered, all four admitted to enjoying the experience but talk of doing it again next year was very limited! Clearly this is a tough event, not to be underestimated and best suited to those training for long distance events on the road such as the marathon.
Brass Monkey York Half Marathon
24 January 2010
The fast, flat and furious Half Marathon known as the ‘Brass Monkey’ took place in York again this year.. This is a notoriously hard to enter race which typically fills up within a day of entries being made available, however, hand delivering the entry forms this year got us four places in the event with Joanne Lee, Rachel Chinnery, Ian Bromley and Balazs Somogyi taking part.
The race start time of 10am made it an early morning to get down to York, and with the weather being predominantly cold and dreary with rain all the way down the A1, the pre-race mood certainly left a bit to be desired. However, a well organised setup and spacious race HQ at York racecourse ensured pre-race preparations went well, and by the time the race was ready to start we were all raring to go.
The early race stages consisted of mainly ripping up the predefined strategies and making it up as we went along. Ian seemed intent on reaching the first corner of the course in the lead and set off at a pace which a certain Jamaican sprinter would have been quite pleased with. In the meantime Joanne, Rachel and Balazs were far too intent on fine tuning and calibrating their Garmins to take too much notice of what was going on around them and nearly missed the start.
The pace settled through the mid section as the course wound its way through Bishopthorpe and Appleton Roebuck. The entry limit of 1200 was an ideal number for the route, and because of the strength of the field there were never many gaps and an abundance of other runners to run with or against at every stage. The course was generally flat throughout, with a couple of bridges constituting the only changes in elevation (though these still caused pain coming, as they did, at miles 11 and 12!)
As a testament not only to the solid winter training, but also the excellent running conditions on the day, all Tynedale runners achieved PBs, perhaps also spurred on to avoid the kind of scrummage in the post race shower last experienced in the Carlisle Half Marathon (anyone who raced there will know exactly what I mean!). Ian came in 71st overall in 1.21.04 – an improvement of just under four minutes on his previous best. Balazs finished 128th in 1.24.23, a PB by well over four minutes. Joanne was next in 1.28.47 as 23rd woman, a best by just under a minute and a time which put her 7th in her age category. Finally Rachel improved by over a minute as 31st woman with an excellent 1.31.17 to finish 5th in her age category. With Joanne and Rachel both achieving Gold in the road running standards with these performances, and with a total combined PB improvement of over 10 minutes by the Tynedale runners we considered this an excellent return on the days running. Every effort will be made to enter the race again successfully next year!
After finishing, our attention turned to the necessary post race refuelling, rehydration and analysis, which was accomplished courtesy of some fine taverns in York city centre. This rounded off an excellent day, and we would highly recommend this race for anyone considering an early season half marathon.
The Brampton to Carlisle 10 Mile Road Race
The 58th Brampton to Carlisle road race went ahead this year despite the wet weather conditions which caused flooding on the normal race route. The organisors (Border Harriers) should be congratulated for salvaging the event by agreeing with the Cumbrian police that the race could go ahead along the main road from Brampton to Carlisle.
This reduced the distance to about 9.1 miles compared to the normal 10 miles but allowed the race to start as normal and, more importantly, finish at the Sands Centre where changing and showers were on hand.
Despite the last minute uncertainty around the event, the turnout of Tynedale Harriers was excellent. A total of 21 Club members made the trip west along the A69 to test their fitness on this tough middle distance route.
Once again it was the Tynedale ladies who took the honours by winning the open team event. The team comprised Sonia Morley, Joanne Lee and Steph Scott whose combined points total was one better than the host club, Border Harriers.
Sonia completed the 9.1 miles in 57:07 making her 5th lady overall and first in her age category. Joanne was just over an hour (60:17) with Steph about 2 minutes behind in 62:15. Rachel Chinnery also had a good run on the day coming in 4th lady for the club in a time of 63:11.
Kim Bluck, Steph Bingham, Jane Greening, Louise Griffin and Janet Oliver all finished between 65 and 70 minutes with Eileen Armstrong recording 84:53 and coming first in her age category (L70).
In the men’s competition, Ian Bromley was first for Tynedale in a time of 54:16 coming 47th overall. Not far behind was Hugh Bingham in 55:37, 10th in his age category and 66th overall. Hugh had a good run but eased off over the last few miles to enjoy the event rather than pushing for a time.
Ian Brown and Balazs Somogyt were next to finish for Tynedale in 57:29 and 58:22 respectively while Martin Bluck managed to narrowly beat Peter Murphy by a 3 second margin in 59:03. This friendly rivalry is expected to intensify as the season progresses!
Peter Hearn finished exactly on 60 minutes with David Ford (67:05), John Davidson (76:26), Steven Rutherford (82:50) and Dogmar Winter (83:51) completing the entry from Tynedale.
This was the second event in the Club’s 2010 Grand Prix competition and points will be awarded to all who took part. The next event in the competition is the Hexhamshire Hobble on 6th December and an equally good turnout is expected for that event.
Another excellent turnout by Tynedale Harriers for this popular Half Marathon.
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